Country fiches

The Austrian crowdfunding market is slowly changing from a small market niche to a serious alternative in the financial system. The change is due to the introduction of a new legal framework, which came into effect in Austria on the 1st of September 2015.

The Belgian crowdfunding market started late, however, it is evolving quickly and crowdfunding is becoming a viable alternative for financing. The Belgian market is primarily dominated by local platforms, with some impact from international players.

So far, there isn't much data available with regard to the crowdfunding industry in Bosnia and Herzegovina. No platforms are active in this country, however, there are some interesting initiatives which use crowdfunding as a democratising tool.

Crowdfunding is a relatively new and not yet widely used instrument for fundraising in Bulgaria. However, more and more entrepreneurs from the country, especially those in the technological field, take advantage of the international outreach of large crowdfunding platforms.

China is the largest market for alternative finance in the world. According to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), China delivered over $100 billion in alternative finance, including peer to peer lending and crowdfunding, in 2015.

From the Croatian perspective, crowdfunding is currently a big challenge. The greatest weaknesses are a small general awareness of the possibility of crowdfunding, low use of Internet for online purchasing of goods, poor development and mistrust of e-business.

Although the crowdfunding market in the Czech Republic is quite small compared to other European countries, it is growing rapidly. By the end of 2015, 5 platforms were online and policy makers started including crowdfunding related issues into current legislation.

Estonia is a European frontrunner! Crowdfunding started in 2009 with a local P2P consumer lending platform called isePankur (now Bondora). In 2015, Estonia ranked second in Europe in total volume per capital.

The Greek crowdfunding landscape consists mostly of donation/rewards-based platforms with a short operation lifetime and a relatively low number of projects. Crowdfunding is still in its infancy in Greece.

Crowdfunding established itself rather quickly in Italy, where Produzioni dal Basso, the first donation and rewards-based platform was launched in 2005. The growth of the crowdfunding market has been slow, but nevertheless relevant.

Crowdfunding platforms based on donations or rewards models could operate in Lithuania without any major regulatory burden, nevertheless Lithuania has no donation or rewards based platforms. Within the last year, as many as five P2P consumer lending platforms were launched in Lithuania.

Crowdfunding has yet to arrive in Luxembourg. Neither the legislator nor the financial authority have given any indications as to how crowdfunding will be organised on the field or what laws and regulations will be applicable.

There are quite a few crowdfunding projects that are linked to Moldova, but until the beginning of 2016, they were all hosted by foreign crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo, since there were no active local platforms in the country.

Recently, Norway has seen growth in the number of platforms offering crowdfunding services locally. Furthermore, there are some impressive successful campaigns from Norway-based companies on global platforms.

Capital market regulations and administrative barriers connected mostly with public money gathering, are limiting the development of crowdfunding in Poland, a nation with almost 40 million people. The Polish Crowdfunding Society Aims At Changing Crowdfunding Landscape In Poland.

Rewards-based crowdfunding started in Portugal in 2011. Further growth is expected, once the general public is comfortable with the concept of crowdfunding. This is because Portugal is one of the few countries with a regulation of crowdfunding since mid 2015.

Crowdfunding in Romania is in the learning phase. It has a short and inconsistent history. The first platform for crowdfunding is only three years old, and only few dozen small projects were eventually financed and finalised.

Sweden has accelerated its activity in the alternative financing sector and offers (as of 2016) approximately seven local platforms, with a wide range of business models and nearly all types of crowdfunding models.

Crowdfunding started in Switzerland in 2008 with the crowdlending platform Cashare. Since then, the market has seen strong growth. In 2010, the first crowdinvesting platform was launched. 100-days and wemakeit, both reward-based, were launched in 2012 and seem to be the largest ones.

The potential of crowdfunding is seen controversely in Turkey. On the one hand, there are significant cultural and historical impediments. On the other hand, it can be a valuable alternative financing method for entrepreneurs and startups.

Crowdfunding in the Ukraine is limited to very special projects. Whilst it has been used to raise money for films, rock bands and aspiring performance artists. Now, Ukrainians have used the concept of online crowdfunding to fund the army.

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